We suggest a linear combination of search directions of the Hestenes–Stiefel method and the memoryless BFGS (Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno) technique. As a result, a one-parameter extension of the Hestenes–Stiefel method is proposed. Based on an eigenvalue analysis, we show that the method may ensure the descent property. In a least-squares scheme, parameter of the method is determined in a way to tend the search direction of the method to the search direction of the three-term conjugate gradient method proposed by Zhang et al. which satisfies the sufficient descent condition. We conduct a brief global convergence analysis for the proposed method under the Wolfe line search conditions. Comparative numerical experiments are done on a set of the CUTEr test problems and the detailed results are reported. They show practical efficiency of the proposed method.

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